Perfect In Our Imperfections
by SongbirdNoodles
Summary: Written for the 10 songs meme, 10 connected CJ/Danny post-finale drabbles.


_1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like._

_2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle._

_3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over._

_4. Do ten of these, then post them._

Perfect In Our Imperfections

1. Perfect Love (Marc Cohn)

What people don't know is that CJ and Danny actually went to college together. He remembers her wearing long skirts and wooden beads, smoking pot and daydreaming about Bobby Kennedy, but with the same fire in her eyes she's still got, and sometimes, when she says "liberal" in her press briefings these days, she catches his eye and it's like a private joke between them. And it's entirely possible that he had a huge crush on her at the time. That he thought about taking her out, to a poetry reading or a Dylan concert maybe, shyly take her hand and take her soft face in his hands and kiss her, and tell her she doesn't need twenty tons of eyeliner around those grey eyes to be beautiful. That he daydreamed about her even then.

What people don't know is that when he kisses her in her office in the White House on a January night, it's twenty years in the making.

2. Love Walked In (George Gershwin)

She's not too fond of jazz, because it seems like the kind of music everyone pretends to like and nobody really enjoys, so when he fiddles around with the radio dials and gives a satisfied "Ah!" when soft crooning and unmistakable Gershwin fills her car, she makes a point of rolling her eyes. She's trying to teach him a lesson here- this is not going to be as easy as he thinks it is. He ignores her.

3. Was Ich Behaupten Kann (Sportfreunde Stiller)

She still thinks this is terribly hard some days, never being alone unless she asks him to leave her alone, talking about stuff and letting him ask her questions and resisting the urge to snap "None of your business, Danny!" She still thinks it's terribly hard, admitting to herself that despite of how bothersome he can be, this is probably the happiest she's ever been. Because she loves him terribly, his scruffy face peeking up at her sleepily between pillows in the morning, his doleful look when she snatches the paper from under his fingers. The fact that he volunteers at a Middle School in South Central teaching kids how to spell, and the fact the he remembers to bring the carrot muffins she likes so much from the bakery on Saturdays. All of which kind of makes it worth it.

4. Eternity (Robbie Williams)

Years earlier, he watched her briefing crash-and-burn on CNN International, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd cancelled his lunch plans at Abu Ahmed's café in the old city and gotten on the first plane from Ben Gurion to DC. Thirty grueling hours of jetlag and suspicious security checkpoints and a hugely gratifying shower, he showed up on her doorstep with a bouquet of roses and a sad smile, and when she opened her door, he wordlessly gathered her up in his arms.

The next morning, she told him "Thank you," with a soft, vaguely ashamed smile as she handed him a cup of coffee, and he dropped a very chaste kiss on her hair and told her to keep her head in the game, when all he wanted to do is beg her to come with him to Israel, where people are struggling to end a centuries-old conflict and Abu Ahmed makes the best falafel of the Middle East in the shadow of the Dome of the Rock.

Today, he hands her one those same falafels, and thinks that if he and CJ could make it this far, peace in the Holy Land cannot be that far off.

5. For Once In My Life (Vonda Shepards)

While it probably looks like to outsiders like he's the one who's always sure about what they're doing and constantly coaxing her out of her shell, like he's the strong and she the messed-up one, the truth is a little more complex than that. The fact of the matter is that there are days where the fact that she's here and she's his and she loves him just as much as he loves her is the only thing from keeping his head from exploding. The fact of the matter is that the fact that she needs him to be a better man than he is is making him a better man than he is. The fact of the matter is that he loves her not just for her her, but also for the part of him that she brings out.

6. Antonia (Motion City Soundtrack)

She never stops being a mystery to him- not really a mystery but a surprise, never predictable as quirks and every-day magic become more and more apparent in the first months and year of their relationship. He learns that she uses eco-friendly laundry detergent and buys organic veggies because it makes her feel good about herself; he learns that she likes a high sauce-to-noodles ratio on her pasta and a low topping-to-crust ratio on her pizza. He learns that she snores, and sleeps on the right side of the bed, that she swears in French sometimes, and then he learns that sometimes she does stupid things like try to spell out "I'm pregnant" in Christmas tree ornaments.

When his daughter's born, he learns that CJ, despite universal doubts, has insane maternal instincts and knows exactly how to hold, feed and diaper change a baby. And he learns that he wants his daughter to be just like her mom.

7. At My Most Beautiful (REM)

Everyone has bad days sometimes, she knows that. And she knows that it's okay, rationally, to be feeling a little blue for no apparent reason, but still, when he walks around with a face like a dismal November day for a week, all she wants to do is make him smile again, because it's killing her to see him like this. When he comes home that night, she's tried to cook a full three-course meal, and managed to singe her Nigella Lawsoon cookbook in the process. He takes in the pandemonium in the kitchen, their daughter Nellie beaming at him from her high-chair in a miniature Notre Dame sweatshirt, and tickets for the Lakers on the table, and gives her a shaky smile.

"Never stop being you," he whispers as he pulls her into a hug.

8. Beginning to Get to Me (Snow Patrol)

This was supposed to be perfect, and CJ can't help but feel that she got hosed. Because this? Lying in bed with resentment bubbling slowly inside her as her husband stubbornly feigns sleep beside her, this is far from perfect.

They were supposed to talk. They were supposed to be jumping off cliffs and hold hands and be partners, and now, after two babies and five years, all they have is this wall of silence between them, and, maddeningly, mind-boggling to CJ as she lies there in the dark, fuming with an annoyance she can barely remember the cause of, the overarching knowledge that life without each other would be even worse.

But she wants more. She wants perfect. And this is perfect no more.

9. Salut, Marin

He decides to leave for a few weeks, because this is coming to a point where the only way this unspoken battle of who can be more stubborn, more passive-agressive, the smaller, pettier person might actually get fixed is by putting some distance between them. He decides to write a feature for the Times about the Filipino crew of a cargo ship, and when they drive him to the harbor a few days later, the air smells like salt and gasoline and suddenly all she can think about is how much she's going to miss him. The girls hug him and cling on to him and barely want to let go, though Leila's much too little to know what's going on, and she kisses him good-bye and suddenly all she wants is for him to stay, and who cares about losing this round if him, and life with him, scooping her up in a hug after a long day, waiting for her with the girls asleep in his arms at LAX when she comes back from Africa and the way his face lights up when she makes her way out of the security check point, is what she might win?

10. Everbody Loves Somebody

Years later, that little crisis is so thoroughly unimportant that they hardly even think of it. What really matters is mornings spent holding hands at Leila's soccer games and Nellie's ballet recitals, evenings spent settling arguments on who gets to cuddle on Daddy's lap tonight before falling asleep holding hands, and hours in between spent laughing with and occasionally at their kids and shyly glancing at each other, basking in the realization that while perfection is unattainable, the family, the life they've created comes pretty damn close.


End file.
